“Do you need anything?” asked Sen.
The woman who had been left in charge of the orphanage shook her head.
“No, the magistrate has been very helpful about seeing that we get everything we need.”
Sen allowed himself a small smile. It seemed that the magistrate’s will had truly been tempered by his abduction and beating, rather than broken. Leaving him in charge of the city had been a gamble. If he’d proven weak, Sen might have found himself obliged to go on another killing spree to set things right. He was relieved to discover that bloodshed would probably not be necessary. Not unless someone was quietly doing something stupid. A possibility he didn’t rule out. Ambition and greed were powerful motivators for stupidity. Then again, he had no idea what, if any, people Lo Meifeng or Misty Peak might have in the city.
Nor did he know what pointed lessons they might have delivered to the unwary. Which, Sen thought, is kind of the point of having spies and illusion masters in your employ. It wasn’t necessary for him to know about every last thing they did, as long as they weren’t acting contrary to his goals. Keeping track of that also wasn’t the best use of his time, which was why, much like the orphanage, he’d left it for other people to manage.
“I’m glad to hear the magistrate is cooperating,” he said, watching through a window as children played in the courtyard below. “Beyond food and shelter, how are the children faring? Are they being educated as I asked.”
“They are,” answered the mistress of the orphanage, but there was a hesitance to the answer.
Sen shifted his gaze to the woman, and asked, “But?”
She sighed and said, “We can teach them to read, write, and do sums. We can even arrange some apprenticeships as the children reach that age.”
“But?” Sen repeated.
She gave him an exasperated look and said, “But, they all want to be cultivators, and we can’t teach them that. We’re an orphanage, not a sect.”
Sen frowned at that and said, “Why would they want to be cultivators. It’s a terrible life full of violence and killing.”
The woman gaped at him for a moment before she said, “For one, because it’s a path to power, and most of them have been powerless their entire lives.”
“Fair,” said Sen, remembering how powerless he’d felt at that age.
“Mostly, though, it’s because of you.”
“Me?”
“Emperor Lu,” she said in an overly patient tone that suggested she was talking about something obvious. “You’re their hero.”
“I’m no hero,” answered Sen with a dismissive wave of the hand. “If they need a hero, they should look to Righteous Wu Gang. He actually is one.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but he didn’t create an orphanage out of thin air. You gave them a warm place to stay, food to eat, and people to protect them. Like it or not, you’re are their hero, and they want to be like you.”
“Even if some of them have the ability, they don’t know what they’d be getting themselves into. They don’t understand the price.”
“Did you understand the price when you started?”
Sen thought back. He most certainly had not understood the price.
“No,” he admitted.
“If someone had explained it to you then, would you have understood it?”
Sighing, he said, “No.”
Some things required a certain amount of experience to truly grasp. Expecting children to understand that pursuing cultivation mostly meant enduring pain, several different kinds of it, was asking too much. How could they understand that killing was a burden? At least, it had been for him. He’d gotten numb to it, but that didn’t make it less of a burden that his soul carried. How could they understand the fear and pain of a tribulation? Their lives had been hard, true. However, no one could understand how terrifying it was to have the heavens try to murder you until they experienced for themselves. At least, that was how it seemed to him the first few times.
Sen knew now that if the heavens actually wanted cultivators to die during tribulations, they would all die. The tribulations were a test and a crucible meant to burn away the weak. That didn’t make it smart or healthy to underestimate the danger involved, though. A careless cultivator would be killed by that heavenly lightning. But how to explain all of that to a child? Master Feng had warned him about the seriousness of tribulations, more than once, but he hadn’t truly understood until that first bolt of lightning struck him. He looked out the window again at the children. Could he, in good conscience, condemn them to all that pain and suffering? At the same time, could he, in good conscience, deny them that choice? The mistress of the orphanage broke him out of his thoughts.
“What the children see is the strength. They see the respect it brings. They want those for themselves, and who can blame them?”
Sen grimaced. The strength and respect were illusions. Yes, qi-gathering cultivators were stronger and more respected than mortals, but they were constantly at risk from foundation formation cultivators. Those same foundation formation cultivators were equally at risk from core cultivators. The only ones with the strength to genuinely impose their wills were nascent soul cultivators. Sen found a bit of dark humor in the fact almost everyone was protected from nascent soul cultivators by pure indifference. Someone had to go out of their way to the ire of cultivators at that level. It was even true of him unless there was some pressing political reason. If some mortal insulted him, he just didn’t care. He might, might, expose them to a sliver of his killing intent if the things they said were truly appalling. As for cultivators, they knew better. He’d earned his reputation with them.
Sen shook his head. This was a problem that he might and probably should have foreseen. Without families to support them, it was unlikely that any of the children would find their way to cultivation. Or, if they did, it would be along of those dark paths that promised fast power at the cost of one’s sanity or soul. Usually both. That was an unacceptable outcome. But, if he was going to allow the children who were capable to become cultivators, where would they train? They couldn’t find their way unguided. It would take considerable resources to train them. Sen glanced down at the many storage rings on his fingers. They were stuffed with the cultivation resources he’d plucked from the wilds over the last few years. Resources enough to keep several large sects going for a few generations. He wished that the solution to this problem was less obvious.
For now, they’d have to train at his sect. But maybe that wasn’t so bad. His sect could be the foundation for an imperial sect. There would need to be a separation eventually. The Lu family sect on the one hand, where his family, their descendants, and their personal guards trained. The imperial sect on the other hand, where cultivators who protected the empire and cooperated with the mortal army trained. Sen already felt tired thinking about all of the work that was going to be. Not work for him, necessarily, but it was definitely going to be work for someone. Worse, it was going to have to be work he foisted off onto someone he trusted. He tried to think of who he could give that problem to who wasn’t already overworked and came up empty. Well, I’ll have to find someone, he thought. For the moment, though, he’d get the work started.
“Take me to meet the children,” he ordered. “I’ll pick out the ones who have an actual chance at becoming cultivators.”